But That Was When I Ruled The World
by chipzixo
Summary: Remus smiled softly at his past self and his friends, wishing everything were still as simple as their last day of school. Reflecting on his birthday, he flicks through a photo album.


**Hai. I know It Runs Through the Family needs updating blablablabla i'm about halfway through the chapter ;D Blame school for the delay, and Doctor Who. Massive Doctor Who resurfacing obsession of late. Like, MASSIVE. That and Sherlock - which may be one of the greatest things i have seen, ever. If you haven't seen it yet, I'm sure it's on the internet somewhere - go watch it! Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman = 3**

**Now, onto this. This is written for the Song Prompt Competition at the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges Forum. My third song, and some kind of story actually formed in my brain. :') The song was _Viva la Vida, _by Coldplay, hence the astonishingly obvious references to it xD I didn't mean it to be this angsty, if I'm honest, but Sirius' story didn't turn out that well with Glee's _It's My Life, _so... yeah :'D**

**Enjoy, and wish me luck! Don't forget to review, all comments are read and cherished xD and I'll try to reply.**

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_But, That Was When I Ruled The World._

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If he had the energy, emotional capacity or inclination, Remus would have laughed.

At himself, of course. At who he was. What he'd become.

There he sat, a greying, unemployed werewolf of 30, sat alone in a nearly furniture-less, hardly lived in house on his birthday, staring endlessly into his - now cold - cup of coffee. Remus had never any intention of drinking it, it just gave him something to do. The milk was probably off, anyway.

Putting down the teaspoon he'd been stirring the drink with for the last fifteen minutes, he glanced around the room. His eyes fell on the photo album he'd been looking at earlier that say, laying open on the wicker chair at the other end of the room. He heard the clock tick four times before he decided to get up.

He took the place on the seat of the album, instead putting it on his lap, the same page showing. A ghost of a smirk drifted across his face at the sight of the photo.

Four boys and a girl smiled up at him, all looking complet ely ecstatic in their school robes, standing in front of the castle they'd called home for the previous seven years. The girl stood under the arm of a bespectacled boy, her long red hair blowing in the wind. She held his hand as his arm was wrapped around her shoulders. Next to them stood a shorter boy, fairly rounded - his light blonde hair cropped short and his already watery-blue eyes seemingly filling up with tears of happiness. His grin stretched from ear to ear. At the other side of the couple, the tallest boy stood, his long, dark hair also blowing in the wind, his tie undone and his shirt untucked, his robe laying in a heap in front of him. Grinning with the air of a maniac, he had his arm swung around the final member of the group - a boy with tawny-brown hair swept over his face, laughing out loud at his friend's antics.

Remus smiled softly at his past self and his friends, wishing everything were still as simple as their last day of school.

He remembered everything about that day, from Sirius waking them up at 4.00 in the morning just because he wanted to watch the sunrise, to Remus telling his mother that night that he was going to move out the next day, to live in a flat with Sirius in London.

James had been his usual cocky self, strutting around the school with, if possible, more charisma and swagger than usual. His smile didn't falter throughout that day, his arm glued to Lily's shoulders. Not even Snape could ruin his mood as he flew through the last lessons of his school career.

Lily, of course, ever the studious one, still listened to what the teachers said on the last day, even if the majority of them didn't say much and the four boys (yes, even Remus) surrounding her paid no attention whatsoever to anything or anyone that wasn't themselves or their final prank. She tried her best to turn a blind eye to what they were planning, but she'd only ended up joining in anyway.

And then Peter - oh, little Peter Pettigrew. He followed the others around like a puppy, as per usual, hanging on James' every word, his blue, watery eyes wide with excitement, anticipation and overwhelming shock that he'd actually made it all the way through Hogwarts in one piece.

Remus, himself, couldn't keep the grin from his face. He'd studied hard all year, and it had paid off in his results. He'd tried to keep his detentions to a minimum - which was increasingly difficult with friends like James and Sirius, even if one of them was the Head Boy. And, in truth, he hadn't gotten nearly as many as they had - and the ones he had got had been _so _worth it. To see James' and Sirius' faces when he beat them at something - especially pranking - was just priceless. The expressions were like gold dust. But that day, he'd thrown his Prefect badge out the window and immersed himself in his true nature - the Marauder inside that he usually kept at bay so well. The Marauder that now, Remus doubted, even survived inside his thirty-year-old self.

Sirius, of course, busied himself with the prank all day - practising anti-gravity and invisibility charms all day as well as skilfully bribing the house-elves - but still somehow found time to tell his friends how much he loved them - even though he was still sober. He spent the entire day - as he spent most of his life - laughing, roaring with raucous laughter at anyone and anything. The way he stuck to James - nobody could ever have guessed that in a few short years... well, everybody knew what Sirius had done a few years after that photo had been taken.

Remus frowned as he thought of this, still watching the eternal loop of the photo on his lap. _He must have already been thinking about it then, _he thought, scowling a little at Sirius' grin. Of course. Becoming a Death Eater wasn't just a snap-decision somebody could just make over breakfast. And a task from the Dark Lord as big as bringing him the boy who could bring about his own downfall wasn't something given to newcomers - or so Remus guessed. So, seventeen-year-old Sirius Black had to already have seeds planted in his head of becoming a Death Eater. He would have been lying to their faces even then, swearing to protect them as they headed hand-in-hand into adulthood.

Okay, so not literally hand-in-hand. James would never have allowed that.

Remus smiled at his own thought, flicking mindlessly through a couple more photographs before he reached another that caught his eye. The Order of the Phoenix - a now defunct resistance group set on destroying Voldemort himself. He saw himself near to Peter, James, Lily and Sirius - the picture can't have been taken long before they were killed.

Remus quickly pushed this thought from his mind, instead remembering his days in the Order. The Marauders had carried their own sense of invincibility into the Order with them - they walked tall, heads held high, safe in the knowledge that nothing and nobody could touch them. The missions they were given made them feel like a part of some exclusive club, assured them that their actions were always going to be significant in the fight between light and dark. Remus remembered the first mission he was given - something ridiculously mundane like following Lucius Malfoy around Diagon Alley for an afternoon, but nonetheless, the sensation was electric. _He _had been chosen - nobody else. _He _was actively participating. He felt like a superhero.

He remembered the countless meetings and missions he'd had with James and Sirius - a dream team, people had called them once upon a time. Peter didn't seem to mind that he wasn't involved; he didn't seem to attend many meetings, anyway. He'd never been the bravest of the lot. But the other three, Remus included, they were inseperable.

Yes, superheroes. That was a good way of describing how Remus viewed them. Superheroes, or knights, like something out of the Camelot with King Arthur and Merlin himself. They could do anything and nothing could touch them - James would fight, unafraid of anything, and Sirius would feverishly protect. Remus always felt like he was filling in the gaps, just keeping them company, but even that sometimes came in handy. He'd show them themselves - act as a mirror, almost, stopping them from going too far, like when James wanted to charge into a Death Eater meeting they'd come across, alone, wearing nothing but a cotton shirt and some very fetching corduroy pants.

It felt like they were the top of the pile, the top of the world - the world was theirs to do with as they pleased. The childish feeling of invulnerability didn't leave Remus until far too late - and until the deaths of his friends brought him hurtling back down to earth, Remus felt like he was walking on air.

They used to decide what happened, they used to be in control. And the best bit? People knew Remus' name. People knew who he was - his enemies would see him, and they'd recognise him. New Death Eaters would find him and his reputation would preceed him; he could almost see the fear in their eyes. Obviously, this did wonders for his ego, but it also made him feel accepted, properly accepted by people other that James, Sirius, Peter and Lily. He held the keys. He rolled the dice.

But then, it all changed.

He just woke up, and his life had crumbled around him, like footprints in the sand being washed away by the sea, like a wicked wind blowing away everything he'd ever cared about. It was like the Marauder legacy had never even happened, like he'd never had any confidence or power over anything. No, now he was just the werewolf that people avoided, the miserable man who refused to celebrate the downfall of Voldemort, as it had ruined his entire life.

If the Order could see him now - what would they say? They probably wouldn't believe what he'd become. He couldn't even properly believe what he'd become. He was lonely. He was pathetic. His only friend in the entire world that was left had turned out to be Voldemort's right-hand man, and was serving life in Azkaban. He was probably dead. Remus didn't care.

Remus scoffed at his own stupidity. Nobody could be trusted - nobody, not even himself. There was nobody on Earth that was invincible, and there was nothing that could protect you from getting hurt. Since their deaths, Remus had developed a strong pessimistic and cynical streak, unable to see the light in a situation without the shadows of the dark tainting the view.

There was a time when Remus wouldn't have thought like that, when he would have only seen the best in people. When he saw his friends as trustworthy and the world as honest.

But, of course, that was when the teenage marauders ruled the world.


End file.
